The Aliens Who Abducted Me Aren’t So Bad

Aliens are attacking!

Admittedly, when I first saw that article on my phone, I rolled my eyes.

As a millennial who had lived through so many traumatic historical events, I’d become numb to things like this.

I mean, come on. We were known as the unluckiest generation for a reason.

Even if I believed it was true, aliens were just another drop in the bucket at this point.

Which I didn’t. Because again. Half-asleep millennial.

I figured it was an ad for a new video game or something.

I scrolled on social media for a while, ignoring a message from my mother about meeting her friend’s son, the dentist. If I could somehow convince her to stop trying to set me up, that’d be fantastic.

Or maybe more like a miracle. I’d definitely buy a lottery ticket if I somehow managed to pull that off.

I snorted to myself at the thought. Aliens would be significantly more likely than my mom getting off my back about settling down.

I was thirty-two, and apparently, that was too old to still be single, in her opinion.

My phone started buzzing with both texts and a phone call, startling me enough to make me drop my phone on my face. I let out a string of curses, rubbing the sore spot while I picked the phone back up to answer.

“Base wide recall. All military personnel must return to base immediately and report to their squadrons,” the recorded voice squawked. I kept waiting for the part where they said it was an exercise and not something real, but it just kept repeating the same thing over and over again.

What the…?

My phone buzzed again, this time with a message from my commander, reiterating the base-wide message.

That got me moving. Commander Sass was not the type to panic, so six exclamation points telling us to get on base immediately showed he meant business.

I rolled out of bed, stumbling to my closet to grab my uniform.

I worked the night shift the night prior, so I wasn’t supposed to be there already.

Whatever was happening, everyone was being called in.

The article about the aliens flashed through my head, but I brushed it off. It couldn’t be. Could it?

The buzzing on my phone kept going as I scrambled to get my clothes on.

I tripped while trying to pull up my pants and hop down the hallway at the same time.

It was lucky I’d been carrying my socks between my teeth because I probably would’ve broken my nose if I landed on my face like that.

I managed to come out with only a few bruises, stuffing my pockets with my wallet, keys, and phone, and haphazardly throwing on my uniform blouse and hat.

I was definitely not in regs with my shirt untucked and my boots untied, but I wasn’t the only one.

I lived off base, and most of the houses in my neighborhood were owned or rented by military members.

Several guys half-dressed like me were racing for their cars.

I jumped into my Jeep, firing up the engine.

Unlike most of the guys in the neighborhood, I didn't have any family to contend with, so I got out of my driveway first and aimed my car straight toward the base.

I tried flicking on the radio to see if there was something to explain the base recall, but before the radio announcer even got a few words out, the broadcast was interrupted by another phone call. This time from my mom.

“Hey, Ma. Can’t really talk right now.”

“Lorenzo! Oh, thank god. Are you alright?”

Frowning, I flicked my gaze to my phone and back to the road again. Everyone and their mother was on the road this morning, and traffic was shit on the road leading to the base. It gave me enough time to fix my appearance, though, lifting my hips to tuck my shirt in while reassuring my mom.

“Yeah, Ma. I’m fine. Just heading onto base now. Why? What’s wrong?”

“You haven’t heard?” she cried in disbelief. My mom was a typical Italian mother. She didn’t hide an ounce of her emotions, and she bordered on hysterical when she felt her kids were in danger. Especially me, since I was her baby.

“No? I wasn’t even fully awake yet when I got recalled onto base. I don’t know what’s going on. Is everything okay? Is it Pops?”

My old man had some health scares this last year, so we all hovered a little. I couldn’t go home as often as I wanted since I was stationed across the country from them, but I checked in daily.

“He’s fine. But the world isn’t. You need to come home, Enzo. This whole thing is…” Static filled the speakers of my phone, and she started cutting out. I could only pick up a few words here and there. “Attacks… Scared… We’re safe, but…”

“Ma? Ma! I can’t hear you. What happened?”

She tried again, but it was even worse than before and eventually, the call dropped. I muttered a curse under my breath and tried to call back, but I just got a busy signal, which was strange. Pulling up to the base gate, I handed my ID to the soldier standing there, his gun strapped to his chest.

“Hey, do you got any idea what’s going on?”

He shook his head. “The only thing we know is that you need to report to your squadron. Don’t hold up the line.

” He handed me my ID and waved me through, already beckoning the next car in.

It was fair, since the lines were still miles long.

And it wasn’t like an enlisted guy was likely to have any actual information.

Us lower ranking peons were on a need-to-know basis. Apparently, he didn't need to know.

Traffic on base was just as bad as off base, so it took another fifteen minutes before I reached the flight line and the building where our squadron was located.

The parking lot was already mostly full, but I found a spot near the back.

I was always grateful that my Jeep didn’t have doors.

It made it easier for me to squeeze into smaller spaces.

I slipped out of my Jeep, hustling out of the way of a few other cars and into the building.

Normally, at this time of the day, the squadron would be busy.

Officers causing trouble because they didn't know what they were talking about, sergeants making demands we wouldn’t be able to pull off without extending our shift past our normal release time.

Half the guys would be on the flight line, while the other half would be in the hangar.

So it blew my mind when the hallway was empty and the building was quiet.

I headed toward the back in search of someone who could explain what was going on, backtracking when I noticed the crowd of guys in front of a few computers playing the news.

No one was working, everyone glued to the screens instead.

My mouth fell open when I saw what was on the screen. “Holy shit. That was real?”

Marin nodded slowly beside me, his eyes locked on the screen. “Yeah. I got a phone call from my brother in New York. They came out of nowhere. Everyone is panicking, and the roads are so jam-packed, there’s no movement. He’s hunkering down instead.”

On the screen was a news reporter talking about the alien invasion currently happening all over the world. Massive, city-sized spaceships hovered above major population centers, with smaller ships zipping around and firing on the military response teams below them. No… Not firing…

“Are they abducting people?!” I squawked incredulously, my eyes so wide it was possible they’d fall out of my head.

“That’s what it looks like,” Knightley confirmed grimly from where he sat in front of the screen. “There’s been a few times where they fired back, but mostly it looks like they’re sucking people up and moving on. No one has been able to contact any of the people who were taken, either.”

Holy hell… This was straight out of a sci-fi novel, and I sure as shit didn’t want to be a lead in one of those. I fished my phone out of my pocket and attempted to call my mom back, but it was like my phone couldn’t find any signal. Nothing was going through.

“What the hell are you all doing?” a familiar, irritating voice snapped from the doorway. “We need those planes in the air! Get to work!”

“Why? Do you know what’s going on, sir?” I asked, because come on. Working on engines right now seemed a little stupid while there was a literal alien invasion going on. Shouldn’t we be heading out to the nearest big city to fight?

Lieutenant Colt was a douchebag of epic proportions, though. I should’ve known he wouldn’t answer. “You don’t need to know! Just get those planes ready to get in the air!”

He got a few dirty looks, but we all split up eventually and headed for the flight line.

Stupid butter bar was on a power trip the minute he finished the academy and loved making demands without giving us any actual information.

He had no clue how an engine worked, or how long certain tasks took to accomplish.

I’d be surprised if he knew the difference between a wrench and a screwdriver. The man was that clueless.

A group of five of us headed for one of the planes on the flight line.

When I became an engine maintainer, I thought it’d be complicated and confusing.

But an engine is an engine, and once you get the training done, it’s simple enough to understand.

I even took some training on the side to supplement because I enjoyed it.

And I enjoyed feeling accomplished at the end of the day when the plane I worked on left base on a training flight.

Having a physical representation of my efforts felt good.

Normally, on a shift, we were a chatty group. We got the work done, but that didn't mean we couldn’t socialize while doing it. Since we were in a hurry, not much was said between us. The other shift was in the middle of a job, and if we wanted this plane airborne ASAP, we had to focus.

I was halfway inside an engine finishing what they’d started when the base sirens started blaring.

I jerked, whacking my head, which normally would’ve been met with a round of laughter.

Instead, there was a buzz of panic in my fellow airmen, and when I straightened, they all looked to me as the highest-ranking guy out here to tell them what to do.

I was only promoted to staff sergeant a few weeks ago, so it wasn’t something I was used to.

Normally, I’d text or call my leadership to see what he wanted to do, but my phone was still on the fritz.

The plane still had power, so I ducked into the cockpit and grabbed the radio.

“Uh… Tower? This is flight line maintenance. What’s going on?”

The immediate response chilled me to my bones. “Incoming! Incoming! Take cover!”